Mossback Colossus — Convergence

The Story of Mossback Colossus

Nobody in Verdant Reach knows how old Mossback Colossus is, because trees older than several villages are growing from its shoulders.

The creature spends decades standing almost motionless in flood valleys, becoming part of the landscape. Birds nest in cracks along its stone hide. Orchids bloom in moss packed around its joints. Children have crossed streams using one of its sleeping arms as a bridge without realising the bridge was alive.

Mossback only moves when the forest suffers damage large enough to wake the fungal network threaded through its body. Fires, clear-cutting, poison and unnatural blight all produce the same response: a slow rise, a shower of soil and an extremely direct walk toward the problem.

Its Fortify effect comes from accumulated life. The first curse, shock or weakening force is often swallowed by bark, moss, fungus and stone before it reaches anything vital. Mossback does not dodge insults to its strength. It has simply survived too many centuries of weather to consider the first one important.

The first Thread it encountered opened through a grove it had been protecting. Mossback stepped through because the roots around it recoiled.